


Restrictions

by Anonymous



Category: The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Gen, Valinor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 13:47:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,016
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14106708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Power and the forms it takes; or, Valinor was a bad idea and everyone there makes bad choices.





	Restrictions

Beside Cuivienen, they feared and they fought—when they could fight, when they weren’t hopelessly outmatched, when they weren’t helpless. They were too often helpless.

That was then; this is Valinor, and Valinor is safe. They are no longer helpless in the face of danger. There is no longer any danger to be helpless in the face of.

-

Dark shadows in the starry night hid dangers—holes in the ground lurking where unwary feet might step, indistinct faces that might belong to friends or might belong to orcs.

In Valinor, the light is unceasing. For a long while the newcomers are half-blinded and constantly squinting. But the light means safety. The light is healing, the light is something pure and powerful, the light is as ancient as the Valar if not more so. The light deigns to reside in the trees but it is not the trees; they would wither without it, but it flourished before them.

In Valinor, the light is everywhere. The light shines through windows and curtains and even closed eyelids.

Beside Cuivienen they woke and worked and lived by darkness. In Valinor they sleep in the vague red glow of light passing through flesh and blood.

-

Beside Cuivienen, it was a fact of life that, if they had no children, someday there would be no elves.

When the first elves awoke and looked around and found the stars and the trees and the lake and each other, as they searched, they found a body. An elf not yet awakened, they thought at first of the six-foot body lying sprawled on the leaf-litter in a pool of something whose color they could not see in the darkness. He was cold; his heart was still and silent; they never knew him.

Death was with them from the beginning.

In Valinor, the dead rise, and they are healed. Healed, they say. What they are healed of, they do not say; being healed, they remember little of it, whatever it is. They are as if (they never did wrong?) (wrong never befell them?) whatever it was never happened. It is, the Valar say, no longer in the continuity of their lives.

In Valinor grieving parents embrace their resurrected children, widows their spouses. Orphans meet their parents and learn who they came from. Long-lost friends are reunited. Even those they left behind among the Avari and on the western shore of Beleriand are not lost to them forever; death comes for all, in the east; reunion comes to all, in the west.

They meet again in the place where there is no darkness.

-

Always, there is a next generation. A son is born to Miriel Therinde. She is tired, unbearably tired; that must change. She can’t stay (imperfect) tired and grieving in Valinor. Valinor is perfect. Imperfections must—will—be (removed) (excised) healed.

-

Every man should have exactly one wife. Every woman should have exactly one husband. Finwe is grieving and lonely, which is (a stain on the perfection of Valinor) (a flaw in him) not an acceptable state of affairs in the long term. As few people should die as possible. No one should leave. Miriel is unwilling to (smile) (lie) (hide) return to life.

The thing that gives first is the rule against remarriage. It can be more specific. Every man should have exactly one living wife.

It would still have been better if Miriel would (suffer) (smile) (be good) stay alive for her husband’s sake. He married her. He has a right to her.

But at least no one in Valinor is (flawed) suffering.

-

Something is wrong with Feanaro. He is (grieving) (upset) (lonely) somehow uncanny, unpleasant, reminiscent of the dangerous days when people died, when children grew up orphaned. This, even though he has a father and now, once again, a (replacement) (intruder) (stranger who is not his) mother.

Something is wrong with Feanaro, but no ill may mar the blessed realm indefinitely.

-

Centuries pass and they are all exactly the same.

-

When change comes, it takes decades to unfold.

-

“They will absolutely fault you for it, love.”

“I need to be armed. We need to be armed.”

“They’ll ask you why.”

“That’s absurd. They know we travel. They know we hunt.”

“With bows. A sword has no purpose but killing elves.”

“Or orcs.”

“There are no orcs in Valinor.”

“So far.”

“No one is going to be convinced that you’re forging swords so you can protect Valinor from an orc invasion. The Valar would defend us. That’s why we live with them.”

“I don’t trust the Valar to defend me from a frightened mouse.”

“Don’t use hyperbole. They’ll think you’re too stupid to compare annual death rates before and after we came here.”

“There aren’t any orcs in Valinor because of the Pelori. If there were orcs in Valinor, the Valar would probably just destroy all life on the continent.”

“The Valar created the Pelori and told our parents that there were no orcs here. Other people will consider that defending us from orcs—I consider that defending us from orcs! And you don’t know what they would do in a situation that has never come up. Don’t argue from hypothetical evidence.”

“But they would.”

“They might not. They might burn the orcs alive and then scour Endore until it’s sterile instead. And other people will find it totally plausible that the Valar might not react to an invasion of Valinor by committing genocide. So: you’re not going to say they’re for defense against orcs.”

“Everyone knows I want to leave here.”

“Best not to remind them of that either.”

“Fine. I could just admit they’re for self-defense when so-called Nolofinwe tries to murder me.”

“Do you really think he’ll try that personally?”

“I’ll kill whoever he sends.”

“You should trust the Valar to protect you—no, of course I don’t believe that, but you know most people do. The Valar certainly do. Trust the Valar. Don’t take matters into your own hands. Let them protect you if they see fit.”

“And of course I’ll be told they’re good and just and merciful and would certainly protect me.”

“And that there have been no murders in Valinor and there’s no reason for people to have the capability—yes, love, I know.”

“It’s not that I think they lied about her consenting to stay dead, you know.”

“No, I didn’t know—what do you think, then?”

“They made her think she was… bad, unworthy of Valinor, that we would all be better off without her. And that would never have worked if it had been true. It’s the same with me—they spread vague rumors about some ill-defined marring in the hope that everyone looking at me like they do will make me kill myself and then they’ll say it was a fault in me—but I’m too selfish and too stubborn to die of it.”

“Oh, my love. But you know how that sounds, don’t you?”

“Paranoid. Yes. And as long as you trust the Valar, there’s no reason to believe I’m in any danger. I suppose I need to convince people to stop trusting them.”

“More importantly, I think you should keep it secret that you’re arming your loyalists.”

“I will if I can. We’ll get out of here.”

“You will. For me, I think, it depends on the specific plan you have—there are risks I won’t take for freedom.”

“Don’t be a coward.”

“…Thank you for your frank and honest assessment of my character.”

“You’re welcome.”

-

“It’s the panic that’ll ruin us,” Finwe says during a pause on the ride to Formenos. The light grows ever dimmer; Taniquetil fades into the distance. Finwe unrolls a sleeping bag beside the road in beneath the canopy of a tree a little too thick for him to put his arms all the way around the trunk. “The Valar think an argument is the end of the world. That’s what I expect from them, honestly. They’re spoiled. They don’t really understand risk or argument or compromise. They get their own way and they’re powerful enough not to worry about even fundamental physical laws, and to make it worse the only real fight they’ve ever had was with Melkor. They don’t have a nuanced sense of what things are how dangerous. And that makes them a danger to us.” Finwe pauses, watching Feanaro.

“I think they’re clearly malevolent, not just stupid.”

“Melkor is malevolent. Was, maybe. You never saw what it was like before. If the Valar wanted us dead, we would be dead. If they wanted us tormented we would know nothing but pain. A sword won’t protect you against one of them.”

“If our weapons had advanced as much as our other technology—if we’d been getting stronger instead of weaker—”

“No. …Yes. We have been getting weaker, we have lost what strength we had beside Cuivienen, but our strength was never in weapons. You could make the finest, strongest, best weapon imaginable and train for a century and you would never scratch one of them. It’s impossible.”

“If that’s so, why did he send orcs after us?”

“‘Us’? No, never mind that. That was because he didn’t just want us dead. He wanted to watch us kill our own kin.”

Feanaro nearly seizes on that opening, draws a breath to speak and then thinks better of it. He raises an eyebrow, silent. The children—not that they are children anymore—and half their entourage are listening, some casually looking in another direction, some staring, some just frowning in their general direction.

“And yes,” says Finwe, “I do think it’s possible he isn’t reformed and just wants the other Valar not to realize that. I do think it’s possible he’s been deliberately trying to turn you and Nolofinwe against each other. The other Valar will support whoever they see fit, and if he seems to be doing nothing and Nolofinwe seems to be bringing his concerns to me and you seem to be threatening to kill people—well, you saw how well that worked out for you.”

“I’m sure eventually he’ll try to murder me, too.”

“Maybe. It is very, very important that you not look bad to the Valar, no matter what anyone tries.”

“Not more important than that I not die. You can’t honestly believe they’d ever let me return if I did—not without changing me so much I wouldn’t be myself, at least.”

“I know. But you’re underestimating the risk that the Valar don’t want you dead yet but will if Melkor can make you look bad enough.”

“And you’d have me do nothing to defend myself? You’d have me just hope I’m lucky enough to survive long enough for the Valar to notice what Nolofinwe is up to?”

“You’re not going to be in the same city in the near future.”

“He could send assassins.”

“He would never.”

“Melkor could convince people that Nolofinwe wanted them to come assassinate me. Or do the same thing to me, and so convince him that I can’t be allowed to survive even far away.”

“Wouldn’t it be something if that were so obviously out of character for both of you that neither of you would fall for it.”

“Yes, it would be nice if Nolofinwe were trustworthy.”

Finwe sighs. “You’re right, we have gotten weaker. Before we came here, I would never have dreamed that we would be in danger from each other. This sort of infighting is a luxury of peacetime and you will either leave it behind or die.”

-

Leave infighting behind or die, Feanaro remembers when Finwe is dead and the world dark. He leaves them behind and there will be no going back for them. The force he brings with him is strong in every way, in loyalty and cunning and courage and stubbornness and good sharp steel. There is no one to tell them to trust the Valar anymore, no one to question his authority; there are only their swords and their foe and the freedom they’ve finally, finally won.

They are not helpless anymore.


End file.
